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NEITHER PIC HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS POST. But the post is unillustratable and these pics represent an important gardening discovery. Why hang the hose loosely, as above, when I have an installed coiler drum, below. A tightly wound hose can take twenty minute to de-kink; hung loosely the kinks are kept to a minimum |
Something unique is happening to me. Unique in its precise sense: Unprecedented. Singular. Without like or equal.
I’m reading a 317-page novel written over fifty years ago. No big deal about that. A man in his early twenties with his professional life mapped out into the foreseeable future decides to opt for something entirely different. Not exactly a revolutionary plot base.
The style is initially rather stodgy and individual scenes may last fifteen pages or more. For variety’s sake, perhaps, some scenes are rendered in dialogue, like a play.
As the story moves on, the lengthy scenes seem more justifiable. Two protean figures emerge: the youth’s father and the father of the youth’s girlfriend. Both are wealthy, skilled at what they do, successful and confident. Both have opinions about his life-changing decision but are neither condemnatory nor entirely enthusiastic.
By now I’m a third through the novel, the language has improved and original ideas spring out of what is said. I am drawn into the story. I want to know what happens next and – wait for it! – I have no idea how things will be resolved.
None of the above suggests anything unique.
What does make it unique is that I wrote the novel.
That is so interesting about memory, and made even more so that you are the author of the book that you are holding in your hands, written 50 years ago. As we get older the old becomes new again. Memory fades, and surprises await us.
ReplyDeleteNewRobin13: In the sense that anyone reads this post, the most likely reaction will be disbelief. We're talking abot 80,000 to 90,000 words here. Most people would say: of course some of those words are likely to be forgotten over 50 years (when I was in my late thirties). But not the main characters, the wide plot swings between different locations, the moral issues involved, the plot's aims and - perhaps most remarkable of all - the way the plot is resolved. But I swear this is the case. I am now halfway through and I still have no idea of how it will end. Consider: this was created within my mind and imagination, no one else's. And yet I'm reading it as if it were someone else's work. And for the first time.
ReplyDeleteI have never written a book, nor am I in any danger of doing so, but I can imagine that it must have been a very satisfying experience to have seen one’s work in print, with a shiny dust jacket and your name beaming up at you. I suspect that was long before the days of “self-publishing” when a manuscript had to be submitted and approved by a publisher, and proper editorial rigour was applied. Bravo for the achievement. To read it, fifty years on, must be quite an experience, especially since you have (quite understandably) forgotten some of the details. I hope you have been impressed by a deft turn of phrase, a passage to be noted for quoting in an appropriate context on some future occasion, a sense still that it was a job well done. One could not ask for more.
ReplyDeleteDMG: Since I wanted to build up to the climactic single-sentence final para of the post I practised one or two omissions. The novel, actually my third, was in fact a carbon-copy duplicate of the MS I'd sent to my agent. He'd been enthusiastic about Number 2 and even took me out to lunch to discuss it; circulated it among various publishers but the verdict was "well written but plot not original enough".
ReplyDeleteAlthough my reactions to Number 3 - the subject of this post - are truthfully recorded the novel (so far, anyway) is not fit for submitting to agents or publishers. It's rather wordy and is concerned with the practicalities and morality of becoming a journalist. Rather too static.
It does, however, provide a stepping stone to the two published novels (and the short story collection) you see publicised on my blog. Albeit three decades later. By then I'd decided to take novel writing seriously (ie, by devoting at least as much time and effort to revision and rewriting as on arriving at the initial draft). Gorgon Times and Out of Arizona both represent the best of my abilities. I'd like to say they have met the market approval you describe but this is not strictly true. The publisher (Racing House Press) is a friend of mine; they have, I think, met his approval and have enjoyed limited sales, thanks to the support Amazon provides for fledgling writers. I think they stand up professionally but I would say that, wouldn't I? I have completed two other novels and accorded them the same kind of effort but, at 88, I'm running out of time and good health.
I take it you have heard of (possibly read) H for Hawk. It seems birds can sell and I believe the author has now switched to fiction. Your photo suggests that whatever your age (much younger than me, of course) you appear to be in supremely good health. A published book can provide a panoramic view of your abilities, whereas even a very good blog is in some ways a series of snapshots. Perhaps when those oppressive Canadian winters get harder to bear...
Or learn to sing. Ah, the private ecstasy but that's another story. I'd like to break off and discuss Mozartian structure but I've already run off at the mouth and you're enjoying huge successes with what you are presently doing. Fifty-nine comments when I last looked and, I suspect, hundreds more to come. Bonne chance.
After all this time do you feel like you know the author, your youthful self?
ReplyDeleteColette: I still haven't finished reading the novel yet there's an eerie feeling of prescience as I turn the pages. Initially, the prose is turgid and unshaped; it would be impossible to edit it and turn it into something that satisfied me. But, beneath the failure I sense someone struggling; flashes of interest (perhaps only ten words at a time).
DeleteAnd then... wow, a quarter through the story and several pages devoted to O in discussion with a very unusual women. Distinctly unlovable yet not quite disdainful. A new character who bears no similarity with any woman I've ever known. This is not sex, rather the collision of two intellects with different agendas.
Wow, I tell myself, he has gone ahead and created something. As Faulkner said, an entity that never previously existed. Note the use of the third person singular.
Prescience grows stronger when O visits a professional acquaintance who is in hospital. He's grown to like this guy but hospital has turned this friend into a bore. And O wants to be away. Where did this cruelty (Is it, in fact, cruelty?) come from?
None of this is about me. It's about a writer, barely in charge of a fictional world, and very occasionally doing what writers should do. A creative writing professor would mark him C-plus. I would have no idea how to score him.
Not a hope of it being publication worthy. But how the hell will it end?.
I am eighty years old, so not so very much younger. A lifetime in the outdoors seems to have stood me in good stead - so far! I recently had a bone density check on the advice of my doctor, and she gave me her professional, technical opinion - I have bones like a racehorse! I intend to keep on going until the going gets impossible.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention, I have read “H is for Hawk.” I thought it was quite good but not up to the hype it garnered.
ReplyDeleteHonestly--you aren't the only one. I've worked on and off on a trio of novels...since 2004?? Four computer systems and multiple edits (I was naive enough to write the first drafts of Book 1 in first person) and when I work on chapters now, I have no idea what is happening. Maybe a 50 year wait is worth it, though I don't have 50 years to wait. Love your explanations of the 'writing'. Of course we always do everything 'intentionally', right?
ReplyDeleteSandi: Problems, problems. I have 50,000 words written of a novel that has stalled. Just before this happened I wrote the beginning of a new sub-chapter. Here it is::
DeleteA COSMETICS company, in a brief mood of altruism, had opened a small manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Djakarta. Ostensibly to be closer to the sources of their main raw material – crude palm oil – which they had carefully failed to identify in initial releases to the press. But then, which companies in this line of business are keen to reveal the roots of the magic they bring about?
Things had been quiet in Indonesia for half a decade and McLeod MV had been willing to cast some of its bread on the waters, if less altruistically. The cash was secured via the cosmetic company’s HQ office block in the seizième arrondissement in Paris.
A previously unknown revolutionary group had set fire to a dozen cars in the factory’s Djakarta car park and the insurance company was tiresomely questioning the exact meaning – or rather the legal meaning, not quite the same thing – of the word “riot”. Lindsay was enmeshed.
Sounds interesting, if only to me. But I have absolutely no idea of what happens next. And I have a horrible thought: perhaps I'll be able to come up with something plausible but - just as I'm ready to move on - I'll remember what I originally had in mind and it will DIFFER COMPLETELY from what I'd laboriously imagined. True: writing fiction isn't all beer and skittles
Ha, my dad always told me, "You just make "*hit" up!" So I smile when I think of that and just let loose, and see what falls out. Sometimes one's own personal interior motivations are far more interesting than the planned, sketched, or outlined story plots we seem to think we have to accomplish before even writing a line.
DeleteSandi: My novels start with themes which - I tell myself - will be interesting to explore. At any one time I can usually "see" about 1000 - 1500 words ahead based on what I've already written. Imagination takes over but only in comparatively short bursts. Breaking off from the routine of writing sometimes destroys that 1000-1500-word view forward and can be a pain.
DeleteHere are my themes.
Gorgon Times: Our personalities are strongly influenced by the employment we take up. A male production engineer (with a washing machine company) is made redundant. By accident his skills turn out to be useful in work with a TV programme company. This theme was augmented by adding in a highly educated woman working at senior levels in IT, whose life changes course following critical trauma and whose path crosses that of the re-born production engineer.
Out of Arizona. An American woman earns a living flying light planes, first in the USA then - for most the novel - in southwest France. Her life has been heavily influenced as a result of suffering from naevus flammus (port wine stain) on her face. She meets an Englishman doing odd-job work in France; he has a literary background and is affected by sexual inadequacy.
Second Hand. An Englishwoman on the edge of qualifying as a surgeon is the victim of a seemingly inexplicable physical assault which forces her to look for other work. She finds it in magazine journalism. Throughout she is pursued by a successful but highly emotional painter with Spanish origins yet becomes involved with a moody, getting-older journalist whom she rehabilitates. The assault is explained in the final chapters and reflects indirectly on the Spanish painter. "Who does the decent thing".
Blest Redeemer. A highly successful English businesswoman working for a London investment bank faces a moral dilemma on behalf of an elderly woman she has befriended. As a result she is tried and jailed for ten years. Very much changed by this experience she finds menial work in the north of England and gradual re-establishes her skills as a manager. Music also plays a part in her redemption.
Your description of the work you wish to finish differs with the others by a lack of character identification, motivation or reaction. You've described the Cosmetic world they live in, not the characters that the reader needs to identify with. Perhaps that's the problem, if YOU are not identifying with a character yourself, to make them worthy enough to mention. Just a thought?
DeleteThe longest of my four theme-summaries is 80 words. I sought to give a flavour of the stories, no more. You point out I have described the cosmetic world the central characters inhabit but have failed to provide any character identification, motivation or reaction. All four novels are about 300 pages long, their wordage varies between 85,000 to 110,000 words. If we take just one of my “omissions” – character identification – I’d say most authors achieve this through an accretion of detail spread out through most of the novel. How much character identification do you think I could fit into 80 words? All three of your information categories are addressed in the four novels I have written; what’s more none of these categories is fixed, all develop with the stories. Change is at the heart of all four novels as in most fiction.
DeleteI’m somewhat worried about “cosmetic”, as if the characters’ mode of employment was mere descriptive detail like the shape of their noses. Yet the generalised summary of Gorgon Times stresses the importance of how we earn our living and how this influences us. The central character is shaped by his previous life in engineering and is surprised to find his skills find application in the seemingly ephemeral world of television.
The blurb for Out of Arizona (on my blog home page) starts: “In the USA if your face is not your fortune, a plane cockpit is one place to hide it”. In Jana’s story her face plays an enormous part in her view of life, hence the reference to naevus flammus.
In the other two novels both central characters undergo hideous traumas. Their lives change enormously. These terrible events are built into mini-climaxes within the story and I didn’t care to reveal their outcome in what was simply a once-over-lightly hint about the novels’ contents.
As to “motivation” I fear the problems of reducing what is a complex inter-reaction of many forces into a single word. Do you, for instance, fully understand your own “motivation” in life? I certainly don’t with mine. Illness late in life has changed much of the way I think and act.
DMG: You've worn well. At eighty ski-ing was behind me as was distance swimming. Had I submitted myself to a bone density scan I'd have asked for a measurement to be taken between my ears; I've no doubt that's where most of the problems lie.
ReplyDeleteI must admit I've forgotten much of H for Hawk, forgetfulness is, after all, the protective sheet I draw over myself when wit escapes me. As I recall (I could be wrong) the bird played the role of a psychiatric transfer mechanism in that the author was suffering from some unexplained mental disturbance which may have driven out a taste for ornithological nicety.
As I said I enjoyed my brief periof of "twitching" (I'm sure you abhor that rather feeble synonym for your life's study.) My reference to Linnaeus still remains obscure but an essential difficulty with bird-watching has now crystallised within. However, I must learn to be less profligate with my meagre knowledge of ornithology otherwise I could quickly run out of plausible subjects to raise between us. Until another day, then.
"... until the going gets impossible." Sounds sinister. What then? Isn't there a character in Greek mythology whose liver was pecked out by contemporary raptors? Nothing like that, surely?